Food Bus Initiative Coming to Nottingham

Posted on February 15, 2017 at 10:28 am.

Thanks to Nottingham PTA members, Mimi Shah and Rachel Riley for researching and getting Nottingham up and running to participate in this worthwhile cause. The Food Bus http://foodbus.org is an Arlington-based program with over 40 schools participating across the country. This public charity designs, implements and maintains systems by which unused/unopened food leftover from elementary school lunches is saved from being thrown out as waste and then is distributed to local food pantries.

The Food Bus Initiative collects unused and unopened food left over from elementary school lunches and distributes it to local food pantries, in this instance, AFAC. Wasted food from elementary school lunches costs the economy over 2 billion dollars a year. Food Waste also contributes approximately 20% of the carbon footprint which in turn has a major impact on climate change www.fao.org/nr/sustainability/food-loss-and-waste

Nottingham staff and students will join fellow Arlington Public School students and colleagues already participating in the Food Bus program: Arlington Science Focus, Ashlawn, Barrett, Discovery, Glebe, Taylor, and Tuckahoe. Our Knights will be learning about this program from their classroom teachers, in which, (as age level appropriate,) they will discuss the purpose of the initiative, discuss the importance of a healthy lunch and how we will work collaboratively to recover unused food from our cafeteria. Participants in the Food Bus program will work with our SCA to:

distribute it to the local food bank (AFAC)

strengthen community relationships

teach children how they can make a difference in our community

help reduce our carbon footprint

Nottingham so far has donated over 90 lbs of food to AFAC through our Food Bus program!